The Clue? This is how the Victorians bought their sugar, in cones like these or blocks which were very hard, so sugar had to be cut off in small pieces when you needed some. To make sugar powdery, like today, you would then have to pound it hard.

Strange But True

Victorian gentlemen did! Some dining rooms (like ours) had a special cupboard to house a chamber pot so all the gentlemen could go for a wee without leaving the table (once the ladies had left the room, of course!).